Inspiration
by robert3A-SN
Summary: Annie visits Jeff at his new law firm, but before he gets back from court, she sneaks into his office and finds two pictures on his desk – one of the study group, and one with just Annie.


**This is a one-shot I wrote in between chapters of my Community/Parks and Recreation crossover fic "Studies of Playgrounds and Diversion" It's not on the regular Community page because I had to bury it in the crossover section, so few people have been able to find it. But it's there to check out, if you have time after checking this out.**

Annie gave herself credit for holding out this long. She'd been waiting outside Jeff's new office for 10 minutes, and had resisted the urge to go in before Jeff came back from court. But at some point, she had to be realistic.

She and the group had seen Jeff in action already – though it was weird to see him arguing a case without yams, sandwiches or swimming pools in the background. But Annie hadn't been in his actual office yet, and as far as she knew, no one else had either. He'd only been at his new firm for over a month, but it was the month of midterms, so Annie's time had been limited too.

Yet Annie's mind was relatively stable again and classes were slowing down, so she decided to pay Jeff a surprise visit before her afternoon classes. But he hadn't arrived and his office was empty and unguarded – and 10 minutes of common courtesy was long enough.

Annie crept inside, checked that the coast was clear, and then allowed herself to admire Jeff's office space. She imagined it was smaller than what he was used to, but there were still more than enough shelves of legal books to make him look smart. There were a couple of chairs around and a desk, yet she didn't see any real personal touches.

Jeff wasn't the decorative type, as she knew pretty well from Christmas. And showing off personal, heartfelt stuff in public wasn't his jam either. Which is why she was quite surprised to see two picture frames on his desk.

They were probably photos of Jeff, or a little mirror for him to admire himself. Annie went towards Jeff's chair to check it out, briefly feeling the urge to sit in it and see how tiny she would look. But that went out the window when she saw what was in the frames.

The first photo was of the study group on Jeff's graduation day. It was after the ceremony, so this wasn't one of those cute shots of Jeff at the alter with the Human Being. Admittedly, that might have made Jeff's new colleagues creeped out without the proper context.

But this was still a great shot of Jeff and the group sitting at the study table – and the last picture they took that night before Jeff finally left. Annie awwed quietly, touched that Jeff did have a piece of Greendale with him here after all.

But the second picture wasn't really a piece of Greendale, per se. It was taken on graduation night, but….

Jeff had taken individual pictures of everyone late that night. Yet he didn't have a solo shot of Britta, Troy, Abed, Pierce, Shirley or the Dean on his desk. Just the one with Annie.

"What the hell?" Annie asked to herself, although part of her really wanted to awww at that too. The rest of her was too confused.

Why would he need a solo photo of Annie when he already had one of the whole group? Couldn't other people see this and think….something was up with that? Since when did Jeff not plan ahead for that?

If he didn't care about that, maybe he'd answer her if she brought it up.

At that point, Annie snapped out of her delusions faster than usual. It actually made her proud.

It also made her remember that if this was an Abed movie, Jeff would likely barge in now, see her in his office without permission and set up a whole comical farce. And she really only came in here to say hello during her lunch break.

So Annie left Jeff's desk and was ready to go back outside. However, she only got halfway out before Jeff barged in, a few seconds off cue.

Annie squeaked and would have said hello to buy time, but Jeff didn't notice her. In fact, he sat down at his desk without even seeing her. She felt both relieved and offended, until she saw the clear signs of a stress headache on Jeff's forehead.

She was tempted to ask him what was wrong, but if Jeff really didn't notice her – or see she had been spying on his pictures – she didn't want to give it away.

Yet that got much harder when she saw Jeff grab his Annie picture.

"Okay, here we go," Annie heard Jeff mumble, before he looked directly at it. He locked his eyes so intensely at the picture, he still couldn't notice flesh and blood Annie. He then closed his eyes to make it harder, but as time went on, his stress lines appeared to be fading.

Annie already couldn't make heads or tails of her picture being there. _This_ was beyond her ability to figure out – and she usually hated the rare times that happened. This time she was just confused, curious, and halfway flattered. Especially since the more Jeff was looking at her picture, the more….at peace he looked.

"Jeff" flesh and blood Annie finally asked. But when Jeff opened his eyes, he merely looked at picture Annie again.

"Annie?" Jeff asked to the picture. Yet he came to his senses and soon noticed the Annie who actually spoke.

When he did, he jumped and tried to cover the photo up. It reminded Annie of when she came home and caught Troy watching Abed's least favorite Inspector Spacetime DVD's. But it was too late, and Troy wasted all day begging her not to tell Abed – enough that she couldn't even talk and say she wouldn't. Jeff wasn't that beggy, but he probably wouldn't give her room to talk either.

"What are you, I mean don't you have…..hey, shouldn't someone have told me you were coming? Did Abed or Troy drop the ball here?" Jeff deflected.

Once she saw she'd been allowed to talk, Annie gathered herself and answered, "I wanted to surprise you by myself, Jeff. Didn't the secretary tell you I was here before you came in?"

"She obviously didn't stop you from coming in here, so what does that tell you?" Jeff kept distracting her as he tried putting away his pictures.

"I don't need her to tell me you were pretty stressed out. Too much to even see me. So if she did tell you I was here, you probably didn't hear her," Annie out lawyered the newly certified lawyer.

"Wow. You should be the lawyer. Then I could have had a nice long nap at home," Jeff tried to distract, but it was no use. "So you saw the stress headache?"

"Do I actually have to say yes?" Annie asked, trying to be playful and buy some time before the bigger questions came up.

"I guess not. And I guess…." Jeff paused, then sighed and took out one of the pictures.

"I suppose I have no choice but to throw a hail mary and tell you the truth. Being a lawyer is hard," Jeff admitted.

"But you made being a fake one look so easy," Annie attempted to play along.

"The easiest! But that was when I didn't care about….certain things. Things that weren't important to me until I made it out of Greendale. Defending good people, using ethics, working 100 percent, small stuff like that," Jeff shrugged off.

He then turned the picture he was holding around and said, "Now that I have to use that stuff, it's not as much fun yet. So I look at this picture after a tough court date, and it reminds me that things could be worse. I could still be doing stuff with blanket forts and yams. That settles me down and puts things into perspective, and I'm all better. At least when I can do it alone."

That might have either offended Annie or guilt tripped her for invading his privacy. Unfortunately for Annie, she remembered, "I know you didn't look at _that_ picture, Jeff," she informed him.

Jeff put down the study group picture and realized, "You looked at them before I came in. Of course you did."

"Okay, I helped you clear up some stuff. Could you help me do the same?" Annie asked, but came up with an answer for him. "Do you look at _my_ picture to tell yourself things could be worse? Is that what this is about?" she frowned.

"No. That's not how I'd put it," Jeff stumbled.

"Then put it another way. One that explains why you got so….calm when you looked at me. Picture me, anyway," Annie asked, beginning to feel nervous and a little excited to hear his answer.

Yet when Jeff kept quiet, Annie remembered that she should have known better.

However, although Jeff was quiet, it wasn't quite for the reasons Annie figured.

It wasn't that Jeff didn't know the answer, or was deliberately misleading her. He just didn't know how to explain it all. He wasn't nearly ready for that yet – it was too soon.

It was too soon to tell her about that dark timeline of his on graduation day. It was too soon to tell her just how much he thought being with Annie would make him evil, and turn her evil in return. He couldn't even explain to himself how screwed up it was – or how he didn't want to be that screwed up anymore after beating his screwed up imagination that day.

But it wasn't time to say how he wanted to think about being with her as a good thing now. How he was working his way towards it even at his new job. How every time he thought about cutting corners and being his old sleazy self in the courtroom – like he thought about this morning – he looked at Annie's picture and pictured how she would change his mind. How her influence made him think better and be better in court, as it did for much of his time at Greendale.

If that hadn't been enough to make Jeff think he could stay good with her – and keep her good too after all – maybe being inspired by her at his new job would get through. Maybe if he could imagine Annie encouraging him to be a good guy _and _a lawyer, he could be a good guy _and _be with the real Annie at the same time.

But Jeff wasn't ready to put that into practice yet. He certainly wasn't ready to explain this to real Annie.

Otherwise, he'd have to explain why he thought being with her was evil in the first place, and that might not go over well. He'd have to confront why thinking of Annie made him want to be better – and why he'd still convinced himself all these years that being with her would make them both worse. And he'd have to admit a few other things he'd hidden for years – things that made him hurt her to keep them secret.

Of course, not saying anything now probably didn't help either.

"Forget it," Annie conceded. "I didn't come here for one of _those _moments. I just wanted to say hello and see how you were doing. I guess I got a half-answer."

Jeff felt relieved at her letting it go, and annoyed that she was still probably mad and disappointed. If she knew what he was going through….but her not knowing was the whole problem.

No wonder they'd be at each other's throats or evil if they were together. No matter what his stupid brain had fooled him with in the last month.

"Okay. Sorry I surprised you," Annie saved face. "Good luck in your case. I'm sure you'll do great."

Right, that little problem. The thing he imagined Annie giving him advice and confidence on….before real Annie showed up.

Now she was right here, right now, and he was letting her go. There was probably a metaphor in there somewhere, but she'd be gone by the time Jeff figured it out. That suddenly became unacceptable.

"Annie, hold on!" he bought himself some time by asking. When Annie complied, he knew he didn't have much more time. He couldn't tell her the big stuff, but he had to give her something. After the way he had her inspire him in those first few cases, she earned it.

If his imaginary Annie could do that….

Hold on. Maybe Jeff could be halfway selfish and halfway genuine at the same time. It was a stepping stone, at least.

"I'm sorry, I'm not having an easy time with this case," he started. "And I kind of thought thinking of you would calm me down. But I'm gonna need some fresh air and lunch to do that." After a pause, he made himself add, "Maybe the real you could join me?"

"You're asking me out? To lunch?" Annie corrected.

"Lunch, strategy session, whatever you want to call it. The fake lawyer who cracked Todd must have some insight for a former fake lawyer," Jeff reasoned.

"You're asking for my help? For real?" Annie recapped again. "Jeff, that's….but you still need to – "

"I'm trying," Jeff got out. "I just need something to inspire me." If he went any further, then he'd expose himself even more, so he trusted Annie to figure out the meaning. At least the part of the meaning he was willing to expose.

At the least, he could use Annie's advice to win the case right, keep thinking he was a good guy and get a nice ego boost after this rough day. Beyond that, getting help from real Annie would be a big step – and that gesture would flatter her too much to figure the rest out. Until he was ready.

But perhaps it'd be easier to think Annie would be good for him – and vice versa – if Jeff let the _real_ Annie be good for him. Which she almost always was when he let her. And despite how scary it was for her to know how much her opinion mattered to him – it was slightly better than letting her think it didn't matter at all.

Especially when she began to smile like that. That surprised but touched smile she had when she realized someone _did_ value her opinion, and her.

It was sad Jeff had to go through so much just to show her how valued she was. And that stuff like a certain foot rub happened under his nose when he failed. But he'd take that up with his new partners after they trusted him more.

"I'll let the secretary know we'll be out. After I apologize for sneaking in," Annie offered, then headed out shyly. Jeff chuckled, then hid his Annie picture again in case someone else snuck in here.

Maybe one day he'd keep that picture on his desk when he had a meeting. Maybe he'd feel comfortable enough to be honest if someone noticed it, and her. Maybe somehow he'd become comfortable with a lot of things.

But when Annie returned and smiled at him, Jeff certainly knew he needed a new picture of her at lunch, looking just like that.

Maybe this time he'd keep it for inspiration at home, safe from her and the others – for the moment.


End file.
